West Peoria, other students may soon get free Peoria Public Library cards

Monday

Mar 17, 2014 at 1:15 PMMar 17, 2014 at 5:02 PM

Pam Adams Journal Star education reporter @padamspam

PEORIA — When Mary Menke was in grade school at Calvin Coolidge Middle School, she remembers her principal talking about the need for West Peoria children to have access to library cards.

That was about 40 years, a husband and eight children ago.

When Menke began having her own children, the city of West Peoria still didn’t levy taxes for library services. Therefore, West Peoria residents still didn’t have access to free library cards. Menke made the unusual decision to buy a public library card for her family.

For years, the Menke family has paid the annual non-resident fee to use Peoria’s public libraries. Only nine non-residents paid for a Peoria library card in 2013. The current annual fee is $133.

“If we’re going to use the library and we don’t pay Peoria taxes, we should have to pay a fee. I get it,” says Menke, who lives in West Peoria.

A major change may occur this week when the Peoria Public Library Board is scheduled to vote on an arrangement that allows District 150 students who live in areas that don’t pay city of Peoria taxes, such as West Peoria, to sign up for library cards at no cost. District 150 School Board members approved the agreement last month.

“I think it’s fabulous,” says Menke, who is not the only one praising the possibilities of something as ordinary as a library card.

“We don’t know who facilitated this, but God bless ‘em,” says John Carlson, West Peoria’s city administrator. Carlson no longer lives in West Peoria, but when he did, he paid the annual fee for a library card.

West Peoria residents voted down a proposal to annex to Alpha Park’s library district by a huge margin in 1999.

The new library-card provision grew out of a much broader formal agreement signed between District 150 and the Peoria Public Library Board last April. Since the intergovernmental agreement went into effect, the two entities have increased joint efforts to improve reading and literacy skills. For instance, the library bookmobile makes regular stops at three District 150 schools, library staff members work with school librarians to share costs and resources, and librarians visit schools to train students to use the public library’s databases.

“By luck of an address, we had students who couldn’t get a library card,” says Peoria Public Library Director Leann Johnson. “My focus was strictly this is a District 150 student who can’t get a library card because of the way the law is written.”

Through research, Johnson learned state law permits the two public bodies to amend the intergovernmental agreement to allow free library cards for District 150 students who live outside of city of Peoria taxing boundaries.

If the Library Board approves the amendment, as expected, the school district and public library will work out the details.

The arrangement isn’t quite free for District 150. The school district must give the library something of value in return, according to state law, such as sharing costs for an author’s visit or a special program.

The two public bodies also must decide if the newly available library cards should be used only during the school year or year-round.

Menke’s children either attend or have attended Whittier Primary School, Calvin Coolidge Middle School, Manual High School and Notre Dame High School. The three public schools are the most likely to be affected, though children in a few other areas also will gain access to library cards.

Menke says she and her children love public libraries, particularly Peoria’s library Downtown. They go once a week during the summer.

She worries about families that can’t afford to pay for a library card. She wonders if it would be best to allow children to have library cards year-round rather than during the school year only.

But she knows she’s willing to continue paying for a library card if the two boards decide student cards should be for the school year only.

“They know us at the library, that’s a nice feeling.”

Pam Adams can be reached at 686-3245 or padams@pjstar.com. Follow her on Twitter @padamspam.